Page 40 of The Duke's Spinster

Having pushed her sister across the room and toward the door, they were nearly there…yes, the doorframe was within reach. Boudicca used it as leverage.

“Just don’t lock the window,” Mimi commanded.

“All right,” Boudicca sighed.

“And change. Please. For the love of God, change.”

“All right!” Boudicca whispered sharply.

She closed the door and leaned against it, resting her head against the wood.

What an imagination that girl had. The duke would never visit her chambers in the middle of the night. That would be the most asinine behavior she could ever conceive of him. He was a duke. A powerful, sought-after-by-all duke. They had shared one kiss. He wasn’t going to come to her room tonight. Or any night.

Boudicca looked down at her nightrail and used her hands to smooth the lines of the worn fabric down her thighs. Searching for and finding one loose thread in the nightrail, she changed out of it.

*

It was themost moronic, imbecilic, foolhardy, some might even say, asinine, thing he had ever done.

His gentle tap on the window was the loudest sound in the dark of night.

He didn’t hear anything, so he tried the window. It was eeking open. It was unlocked? But the thought didn’t have time to register because as he was pushing the window open, so was she.

“Wesley?” Bewilderment encrusted her query.

“Yes. It’s me.” He hopped into her room. The first thing he noticed was her nightrail. It wasn’t a tattered old cotton article that he had been expecting. The one she wore looked almost new. There were no sleeves. He sucked in a breath. And it had a few bows on it. Ties. That he could pull to unwrap her. And, by God, he was pretty sure he could see the outline of her impressive breasts in it. He couldn’t help staring, and as he did, his imagination of them turning turgid became a reality. And he could feel his cock swelling.

“What are you doing here?” she crossed her arms over her glorious nipples.

He cleared his throat. “I came to…talk.”

“You came to my room in the middle of the night to talk?”

“Yes.”

“Really. Won’t we talk tomorrow?”

“Yes. But we have our lessons. And then there’s a ball tomorrow evening…” he was rambling like the biggest idiot he had ever seen. What had become of him? The man with the highest standards. The duke who had never courted a lady.

“I dare say you have ulterior motives.”

“I might.”

“Just be honest then.”

“I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to kiss you again.” There. He had said it. It sounded stupider out of his mouth than inside his head. What was twelve hours to wait?

“All right. You want us to have another kissing lesson then? I suppose you do owe me a few, so catching up is a good idea.”

“Let’s be clear about one thing. This is not a lesson.”

“It’s not.” Half-question.

“No. I—um…was unable to separate passion and the lesson. This—me coming to you at night—is me coming as a man interested in a woman.”

He couldn’t very well have said gentleman and lady, for in no way were his intentions that honorable. And if they did become intimate and he proposed, doing the honorable thing, he knew she would decline the offer. She had already told him as much. It seemed a win-win, if she wanted it as much as he did.

“You’re not a gentleman tonight?”

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